In 1981 she received her first role on “Lena Horne: The Lady and her Music” and right after that she took part in “Ain’t Misbehaving” on Broadway. Roles were small, but ambitious Ferrell only started to get involved in acting. Soon, she made a screen debut in film “So Fine” (1981). Later on she appeared in “Lady Beware” (1987) as Nan and in little episode in “Nuts”. In 1988 she also showed up in a couple of films with the bigger roles: Flygirl in “Tapeheads” and Tasha in “School Daze”. In 1989 she was playing Isola in “The Mighty Quinn” and Nurse Blain in “Exorcist III” in 1991. She was also noticed on television: “The Bronx Zoo” (1987 – 1988), “Full House” (1990), “Thirtysomething” (1989 – 1990), “The trials of Rosie O`Neill” (1990).

Mostly, all of her roles weren’t impressive up until “City” on CBS channel, where she showed up in 13 episodes as Wanda Jenkins. 1991 was very prolific for Tyra Ferrell: she was playing Orin Goode in “Jungle Fever”; Brenda Baker in “Boyz n the Hood”; Samantha in the TV film “Neon Empire”. After starring in these films she was listed in “The Most Promising New Actors of 1991”. This publication helped her to receive some decent roles in 1992 and 1993 in films “White Men Can’t Jump”, “Equinox”, “You must remember this”, “Better off Dead”, “Poetic Justice”, “Ulterior Motives”.

Not only she was gaining popularity, but she also met a love of her life! His name is Don Carlos Jackson. After dating each other for awhile, they finally decided to get married on 9th of April, 1992.After the wedding her career somewhat slowed down. My assumption is that she didn’t feel that acting makes much of an interest to her anymore, because she had a loving spouse and peace at home.

An interesting fact – Don Jackson is more known as Diop Kamau, a civil rights activist, who investigates the misconducts and abuse acts committed by police. In 1994, he created policeabuse.com and is its CEO. Tyra claimed that Don is her only love and that she wishes to share her last breath with him. She feels lucky to have him as a spouse, but unfortunately, they never had a chance to have any children.

After the big break, she decided to come back to the big screens. In 2004, she played Olivia Potter in “Coochie” and Desmond’s mother in “The Perfect Score”. Her best role was Jessamyn in “NTSB: The Crash of Flight 323”, for which she was nominated “NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special”. Currently, she’s starring in “Empire” on FOX channel. According to the FrostSnow, her net worth is said to be around $1 million.